


... And Pain, and Loss, and Suffering

by Epiphanyx7



Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: Character Death, Community: cliche_bingo, Dark, Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-24
Updated: 2009-08-24
Packaged: 2017-10-16 20:10:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/168896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Epiphanyx7/pseuds/Epiphanyx7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>It isn't until they drag his sister in, a mottled bruise covering half her face and tears running down her cheeks, that Chuck understands just how fucked up things have become</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	... And Pain, and Loss, and Suffering

**Author's Note:**

> [[Written for Cliché Bingo 2009. Cliché: Dystopias ]] Chuck, because -- well. Sometimes the Bad Guys win... sometimes, they just get there first. Kind of dark?

At first, Chuck thinks it's an incredibly non-funny joke. At the Buy More it's not unheard of for past employees to go off the deep end, although it hasn't happened at this particular location before. He's mildly concerned, though, when they drag him away from the premises.

After two days of torture and humiliation, Chuck is willing to concede that it's not a joke. He still has no idea what the hell is happening, though. He doesn't know where Bryce is, he doesn't know anything about the CIA or the NSA and he sure as fuck doesn't know anything about a computer or a download, he can't even tell them what was in the email that Bryce sent him.

He grunts with pain when they punch him, screams in agony or terror when they cut him, and then they leave him alone for a week.

It isn't until they drag his sister in, a mottled bruise covering half her face and tears running down her cheeks, that Chuck understands just how fucked up things have become. Ellie is his sister, the only person in the world he's ever loved unreservedly, and the hot splash of her blood against his skin when they shoot her in the last thing he remembers for a long, long time.

-

He vomits beside the deserted street, bile bitter on his tongue. He can't remember his escape. He can barely remember his own name (but he can remember the building's blueprints, the schematics for the bomb, he knows that there are biological weapons being transferred into the country after being routed through Denmark, and that the obituary stating that Bryce Larkin died on Chuck's last birthday is a lie. He knows this because Bryce is there, too, in Chuck's head along with the rest of it. He realizes now that Bryce had been in over his head. He knows way more about the CIA than he's ever wanted to.

The worst part is that he's never even had a choice. Chuck is so fucking sick of people tugging him around, manipulating him like a puppet on strings. Bryce Larkin is the worst of them, always fucking Chuck's life over, sending him home in ruins and taking away everything that has ever mattered to him. And Ellie - Ellie had fucking mattered.

-

It's weeks of running and hiding, using CIA knowledge to fake his way into safehouses for a few hours of stolen sleep before he stumbles out again. He can't predict their movements or tell the future, he just makes connections in his brain, encoded words and messages and knowledge falls into place as if it had been a name he'd forgotten and now remembers.

Bryce did this to him, Chuck thinks.

He can almost remember things, too, things like Morgan's birthday or what Captain Awesome's real name is, but those are always drowned out by the memory of Ellie's death, her being dragged into the room by her hair, the way she'd been sobbing in fear -- not for herself, but for Chuck.

When the blond girl holds him up at gunpoint, Chuck is ready to die.

But she isn't kind enough to kill him. She doesn't talk or flirt with him, she doesn't do much of anything. Her alarm is for his physical well-being, and once satisfied that he won't die, she ignores him and calls someone on a cellphone. They hide in a dingy apartment building long-abandoned, and she holds the gun pointed in Chuck's direction the whole time.

"I'm an agent with the CIA," She says, and Chuck snorts under his breath, almost a laugh. She looks at him strangely.

"I know," he responds, a little bit meanly.

"Chuck," a familiar voice says, and Chuck looks up from his crouch on the filthy floor, sees Bryce Larkin standing there, dressed in black and looking every inch as if he'd stepped out of a Bond movie.

Bryce did this to him, Chuck thinks, and then he punches the other man in the face, backs him up against a wall and hits him and hits him, his rage not subsiding at all when Bryce doesn't hit back.

-

The blond agent is pretty, but Chuck ignores her. It's nice to have someone who knows how to handle a gun around, nice to know that she's going to help him - but she's Bryce Larkin's latest girlfriend, yet another girl that worships the ground he walks on. Chuck stands woodenly, answering Bryce's questions whenever he can.

"The Intersect," he says, frowning. "This all happened because of a fucking computer?"

There's an assassin in Washington at the same time as an international summit; the price of coffee is skyrocketing; a mafia lord known for his drug smuggling and trading in underage boys was seen talking to a member of the Russian mafia in Philadelphia. These things are all connected but Chuck doesn't examine his knowledge too closely, because the things Bryce is saying are too fantastic.

"You mean to tell me," Chuck Bartowski says. "You mean to tell me that they murdered my sister in front of me -- and that was your fault," and when Bryce blanches, swallowing convulsively and his hands clenching by his sides, Chuck feels nothing but a thin, hysterical thread of amusement.

After all the things that Bryce has done to him, it's Ellie that matters. And because it's Ellie, Chuck will never, ever forgive him.

"We have to hide you," Bryce says. "Deep, deep undercover, underground... you won't see daylight for a long time, Chuck, but we have to keep you safe--"

"Yes," Chuck agrees dully. "Whatever you say," because he doesn't have anyone to worry about, any more.

-  



End file.
